Universities’ bid to avoid multi-employer bargaining

Universities are being advised how to avoid getting roped into multi-employer agreements under a leaked ‘strategy road map’.

Former Fair Work commissioner Graeme Watson.

Universities are being advised how to avoid getting roped into multi-employer agreements under a leaked “strategy road map” that unions claim is “incontrovertible proof” the universities want to try to push through substandard pay deals.

The Australian Higher Education Industrial Association, which represents 32 universities, engaged former Christian Porter adviser and Fair Work Commission vice-president Graeme Watson to give a detailed presentation to members on Labor’s industrial relations changes in December.

Ahead of the June introduction of multi-employer bargaining laws, the association has published the “strategy road map” on its website that includes a link to Mr Watson’s slides given at the presentation.

The road map gives advice to universities about three scenarios: those wanting to maintain a single enterprise agreement; those with an in-term enterprise agreement; and those considering entering into the multi-­employer agreement stream.

For universities seeking to maintain a single agreement, it says a rollover of existing terms with a “reasonable salary offer” will “greatly increase” chances of a deal by June, “which will protect you from being ‘roped’ in to a multi-employer agreement”.

It says if it becomes clear the rollover strategy is being resisted, universities should consider a ­direct vote of staff.

The road map provides detailed advice on how universities can access intractable bargaining processes, including arbitration.

It says “having non-agreed matters arbitrated may give you some success in redressing poor clauses down to community standards”, including redundancy processes and reviews.

National Tertiary Education Union national secretary Damien Cahill said the document was “incontrovertible proof that university managements are using a concerted game plan to drive down wages and attack conditions … Instead of negotiating with the NTEU in good faith, employers are more concerned with trying to ram through sub-standard agreements before multi-employer bargaining becomes more widely available.

“We’ve suspected this was the case, with managements around Australia upending bargaining to put agreements to staff without union endorsement,” he said.

“Now the truth has been exposed. We are seeing deliberate tactics to rush staff into accepting offers that don’t give them fair pay rises.”

ACTU secretary Sally McManus accused Mr Watson of “effectively advising universities to pretend to bargain – to engage in bad faith bargaining as a means of gaming the system to keep wages low. Good faith bargaining is a requirement under law, and I doubt anyone will look kindly upon any employer who adopts strategies to avoid it.”

Mr Watson declined on Tuesday to respond to the claims but association executive director Craig Laughton said the McMan­us comments were “ridiculous” and “absolute rubbish”.

“What planet are we on here? He’s an ex-Fair Work Commission (vice-president) and in a time of such significant change, the most … prudent thing is trying to get information so you can provide timely and accurate advice to your members,” he said.

Mr Laughton said the association was engaged in a risk mitigation strategy ahead of the new multi-employer bargaining provisions becoming law and its preferred proposition was to rollover agreements. He said there was likely to be cost implications for smaller and regional universities if they were roped into multi-­employer bargaining.